On October 1st, 2012, Isaac Asume Osuoka and I submitted a letter to the Joint Review Panel hearing on the proposed Shell Jackpine Mine Expansion in Northern Alberta.We attached the following evidence to our letter: The 2011 UNEP report on Ogoniland and the Amnesty International 2012 Briefing on Canada to the UN Committee on the Elimination of Racial Discrimination.
Athabasca Chipewyan First Nation’s legal challenge to Shell oil is at http://acfnchallenge.wordpress.com/about/
On October 4th Shell’s lawyers filed a letter seeking to exclude many people from presenting evidence at the hearings. Isaac Asume Osuoka and I were among them, as was Keith Stewart of Greenpeace. The letter may be viewed at http://www.ceaa-acee.gc.ca/050/documents/p59540/82081E.pdf.
Asume and I submitted a letter in response to Shell’s. See http://www.ceaa.gc.ca/050/documents/p59540/82191E.pdf
See Keith Stewart’s blog on this incident at http://www.greenpeace.org/canada/en/Blog/shell-fails-to-silence-greenpeace-at-hearing-/blog/42651/
Shell’s lawyers employ the recent gutting of Canadian federal environmental legislation (under the Harper government’s controversial omnibus budget Bill C-38 of June 2012) to justify the call for exclusion. For background on Bill C-38 and the environment see http://www.huffingtonpost.ca/2012/06/04/minister-defense-environment_n_1567570.ht
See media coverage at:
http://www.sunnewsnetwork.ca/sunnews/business/archives/2012/10/20121018-072951.html
Shell Canada tries new rules to block Greenpeace from Jackpine oilsands hearings
